


Heart-Hungry

by lapses_of_time



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: everyone adores anne as she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:48:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21637627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapses_of_time/pseuds/lapses_of_time
Summary: No one asked Diana to describe Anne that day. But if they had, Diana would have said that Anne was graced with light. Anne was light. Her best friend was a woman who worshipped among the buttercups, who believed that to say your prayers is unnecessary, but to feel them is as natural and as indispensable to existence as breathing. Such light had allowed Diana to learn things she could never otherwise have known. Anne had taught her to fly.Anne gets married, and Diana reflects.
Relationships: Diana Barry & Anne Shirley, Diana Barry & Jerry Baynard, Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 60





	Heart-Hungry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldinavonlea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldinavonlea/gifts).



Heart Hungry

Diana Barry very much was a Gilbert Blythe fan.

She had waited and wished and hoped and prayed for this, the union between Anne and Gilbert, had even given them a good shove or two in the right direction. Anne and Gilbert made sense together, were _wonderful_ together, and Diana prized herself on seeing it perhaps before anyone else had begun to guess.

They drove one another insane. Challenged each other in ways Diana could never quite comprehend. Supported one another in the face of challenges that from the outside seemed insurmountable, spurred one another to heights that seemed impossible. And they made each other happy. Seeing just how happy they were set a glow inside of Diana's chest, inspired a belief and a hope more fervent than anything else ever could.

Gilbert helped Anne fly. And Diana, who never would have flown quite so high or quite so free without Anne, understood. The world needed more of Anne's love, in all its forms.

So Gilbert and Anne made sense, and Diana was so completely overjoyed for them. But she couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right, that in spite of all the waiting and wishing and hoping and praying she had done over the last ten years, there was something amiss. That Anne was being stolen from her, too soon for her to have readied herself for the total disorder that was about to be wreaked upon her life. 

There was a debt there, Diana realised that. It passed between them, from one to the other, unspoken and unacknowledged, Diana certain it was on her side, Anne certain it was all her own. It was the debt of two people who loved one another deeply and unquestioningly. The debt of two people who understood one another fundamentally. The debt of two people who had formed each other, in every conceivable way.

Generosity, openheartedness and a frank smile. It was all Anne had needed in Diana, all Diana had found in Anne.

Anne had given Diana the defining friendship of her life. Anne's happiness was Diana's happiness; the best and the only thing she had left to give her was that. Which was why it felt like something of a betrayal to lie there beside Anne and cautiously prod the heaviness that had been settling within her, ever since Anne had burst into their dorm room with rosy cheeks and announced herself engaged to Gilbert Blythe. Why it felt like a betrayal when she admitted, there in the safety of semi-darkness as Anne's breathing slowly evened out into sleep, that there were things she not only dared not discuss with Anne, did not feel she _could_ discuss with Anne, but things in her mind that she wanted to conceal from Anne even and above any other person in the world.

From her place on the bed she could just about make out Anne's bookshelf, where the old well-worn copy of Frankenstein sat, carefully placed in the cool shadows by the wall, sandwiched up beside Malory and Keats. Diana didn't know how it had got there, but she was certain it was the same one. Jerry's Frankenstein, her Frankenstein.

She had been an idiot, an idiot who enjoyed his kiss and loved his smiles without ever really considering what that might mean. She had thought it was bravery, that it was rebellion, that it was freedom. Only in the fallout did she realise that she had been engaged in a fairytale, a delusion far greater than the occasion of the haunted wood, and with far greater consequences.

And so it had sat on the tip of her tongue throughout the four years at Queens and the three years in Paris, through every visit they had ever made to Avonlea. The question itself was so simple, would take such little time, use such little breath. _Anne, where is Jerry now,_ she would hear herself say in imagination, over and over every sleepless hour she had ever spent. She knew that Anne had seen him, and often, over the years. Knew that he and Gilbert got on well - more than well - knew that he would be a guest of honour tomorrow. Of course he would be there, this boy turned man who she did not know anymore but who meant so much to Anne and Gilbert.

She had been so determined: she would summon up the courage before Anne's breathing levelled into sleep. But the words, in themselves so simple, would not free themselves from her tongue.

The dress hung on the outside of the wardrobe seemed to acquire a ghostly cast in the moonlight. She felt so stupid, as she looked at it, so stupid for these alternative beats of hope and fear in her chest. It was like being sixteen again. Sixteen and told _t'es toup belle_ for the very first time, and feeling all her faults and fallibilities fall away under his gaze. When he looked at her, she was beautiful. Marvellous and brave and free.

The day ahead sat with Diana, preventing any hope of sleep. Images rose in her mind of Anne so beautiful edged in lace, and Gilbert wearing that look like he was dissolving as he looked at her.

And her parents, their disapproval as they looked at her walking behind Anne, the wonderful Anne who came from nowhere and somehow found herself married, at twenty-five years old, before Diana had given them any cause to look forward to dress patterns or cake decorations. She saw it so plainly, the tight cast of their smiles, grimacing their confusion from back in the fourth row.

And somewhere, impossibly, would be Jerry. Looking at her God knows how. 

Her mind was so full of possibilities, impossibilities, everything that had ever and could ever come to pass. Hurt, love, hope, indifference, all were possibilities, each worse than the last. And amongst them, there was at least one horrible certainty. Anne was leaving her behind, and with her the seven beautiful years of Queens and Paris. No more would Diana introduce Aunt Jo's sparkling parties to her brilliant writer friend, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, quietly confident in the knowledge that Anne would assuredly out-sparkle them all. No more would Anne tell her writing chums of her dear, dear bosom friend Diana, the best pianist in Paris, something no one but Anne had ever believed could be true. No more would Diana's playing blend with the pathetic tones of Anne's verse, rising up into the breathless room, a beat of pause before the dreamlike applause. Her friend would disappear into the life of Mrs Dr Blythe, a writer, sometimes school ma'am and committed wife. Their life together would acquire a haze of unreality, had already been consigned to some fairytale romance, a thing that could have happened in a day dream but never could have been real life. And she, Diana, would be left alone.

Anne stirred a little, then wrapped her little finger around Diana's and smiled. A contentment settled over Anne, and as her friend quietly slumbered, Diana mumbled into her pillow. Dearest Anne, you are more myself than I.

#

The sunlight danced through the East Gable window as if in congratulations, harking the end of all the waiting and courting, the beginning of a new age. It brought out every shade of red and gold between Diana's fingers.

Diana's hands shook slightly as she fixed the cherry blossom in Anne's hair. It was something she had done a million times before - threaded her hands through the softness of Anne's waves and twisted them up into something more beautiful and more tasteful than anyone else could have managed. Diana was renowned among the Avonlea lot for her taste, and it was true that no other girl could have dressed Anne's hair as she did that morning. But it was also true that no other girl knew Anne's face as she did, how to flatter the soft curve of her cheek and the point of her chin and the gentle slope of her nose. The effect was one of absolute, exquisite beauty, beauty that softened nothing, but instead left all the interest of Anne's face naked to anyone who looked at her.

The effect gave Anne a small start of satisfaction, and transformed Diana's expression of concentration into a wide grin. She leaned forward on impulse and pressed her lips against Anne's cheek.

They looked wonderful, when she saw them reflected in the mirror, Diana's rosy face flush up against Anne's. Her friend smiled at her, and reached up behind her shoulder to grasp Diana's hand in her own.

'Oh, dearest of Dianas' she said, and it was all there in that wistful little breath of hers, every moment that had passed between them since that day by the brook when they had made their vows. Diana felt that peculiar sense of loss rise within her once more, took a deep breath and choked back her tears.

'You're ready now, Anne.' She said, instead, as the moment threatened to swamp her. 'Wait here a moment and I'll fetch Marilla with your veil.'

It was the last opportunity she might have taken to ask about Jerry. Once again the words were sat there, a living entity, waiting on the top of her tongue. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. It seemed wrong, somehow, to bring anyone else into this, the last moment of her and Anne together like this. The moment was theirs, they belonged in it, as assuredly as anyone else's name on her lips must have intruded as an unwelcome interloper. So she breathed deeply, and let the moment stretch out into endlessness, theirs and theirs alone.

#

Marilla Cuthbert paused at the door before entering, caught off balance by a rush of love and dread.

She had seen Diana's face, knew that on the other side of that door was an Anne who looked so beautiful and so mature that she, Marilla, would have to search hard amongst the quiet thoughtfulness for any sign of the Anne of the yellow wincey. And she wasn't prepared, could never be prepared. To let go so completely of the first childish kiss she had ever known, to acknowledge that this was no longer the Anne of ten thousand words a second, no longer the Anne of boundless questions or boundless possibilities. To know that she had settled into this, the woman before her, a woman about to embark on the first day of a new kind of life. And she, Marilla, who could never be a matter of indifference to Anne, who would always be one of the first to teach that little hungry heart the wonder of the meaning of words so essential as home and place and family...

Marilla must at least be a little less necessary than she had previously been.

It was the way of things, Marilla told herself sternly. And she must be glad of it. Anne had turned out better than Marilla ever could have hoped, when she first took in that lonely, scattered, neglected little soul. She had hoped that Anne would grow steady and civilized and temperate. Anne was some of these things, it was true, and Marilla was proud. What no one would ever know, what even Marilla would never truly understand, was that she was proudest of the parts of Anne that were none of these things. The parts of Anne that were entirely her own.

It was these parts of Anne that made Marilla confident that her lovely girl was ready for this change. Anne had started again many times in her life, so often in much unhappier circumstances than these. It made Marilla's heart ache to think of it, but it had also made Anne brave and resilient and strong. When they had taken Anne into their home, fed her and clothed her and loved her, Matthew and Marilla had hoped that they might do her some good. But a heart as generous as Anne's, and most especially a heart loved and nurtured as Anne's had been, could not help but give more than it had gained. Anne had made her presence felt so thoroughly at Green Gables, had made herself essential to Marilla's happiness, to the continued beating of her aging heart. A gift from God, that's what she was to them. And they must learn to let her go her way in life, knowing that it was the achievement of their lives to have been allowed to help her get there. Knowing that it was right, the right and proper way of things.

Anne had seen Marilla cry many times, and much as Marilla shied from any other human being knowing how deeply effected she was by all of this, she knew that it was good that Anne should know. So she did not fight quite so hard to repress her tears.

When her breath had evened out, and the urge to cry eased, she pressed the door quietly. When Anne looked up, she saw a woman whose eyes were misty with feeling and the repressed urge to disguise it with sharp edged bluster about fussy sleeves. Marilla smiled a weak and tremulous smile, and uttered a single, overawed 'Oh, Anne.'

Anne, too, seemed satisfied. Marilla saw her glance in the mirror for only a moment, but it was more than enough for her to conjecture that she saw something far superior to auburn hair.

'I suppose we'd better go and see if Matthew is ready' Anne said, eventually.

'I suppose we'd better' Marilla said. 'But before we do, Anne, I have a small gift for you.'

Marilla's mouth puckered aorund the word gift life she was tasting something slightly off - something that savoured of frivolity. But all the same she was smiling as Diana stepped back into the room, bringing with her the loveliest bunch of roses Anne had ever beheld. And there, in the centre, held by a pale blue ribbon, was Marilla's amethyst broach.

'The flowers were Matthew's idea' said Marilla, shifting slightly under Anne's uncharacteristic silence. 'They were planted by our mother.'

'There's a little something from me there too, Anne.' Diana told her.

Anne brushed aside a full rose with her little finger to reveal a dandelion nestled in the centre, perfect and entire. Her eyes sparkled as she looked up.

'Thank you - both of you - so much' she gasped.

Marilla allowed herself to be kissed, a flush of pleasure rising up to stain her aged cheek a soft pink. And Diana did everything in her power to restrain the hot tears from spilling over, as she was pulled onto Anne's shoulder, and found herself engulfed by the floral scent of Anne's hair.

#

Anne was graced with light.

It followed her wherever she went, that light that turned her eyes from grey to green in an instant, that light that transformed the world from darkness into wonder. She was lit up from within, always had been, and it had only taken a little love and care (the destruction of scrimpy grey wincey, the feeding of a hungry heart) for the rest of the world to be compelled to see her as she was and always had been.

Everyone there that day would have said - and did say - something different, when asked to describe Anne.

Josie Pye would have said she was trash who got lucky, and she might have put in the effort to convince herself that she half meant it. Ruby would have laughed and said she only ever understood about half of any of the things Anne was prone to say. Rachel Lynde would have said that Anne was smart, that's what, and kind, and a little peculiar, but folks needed a little peculiar from time to time. Miss Stacey would have said that the world was better for having Anne in it, that flame headed Robespierre.

Aunt Jo would have said that life had a million colours through the Anne girl's eyes. Cole would have said she saved him, and that long before that she saved herself.

Ka'kwet would have said that Anne was also Melkita'ulamum; a strong, brave heart.

Mary would have called her loving, bright, tender. Bash would have said that Gilbert Blythe was a lucky man. Matthew would have said that she was smart as they make em. Jerry would have said that Anne could be anything she wanted to be. Marilla wouldn't have hesitated before confessing that she was the most treasured gift God had ever given her; she had no hesitation in fixing her hopes and her joys on a worldly fellow creature now. 

There weren't enough words in the world for what Gilbert might have said, if someone had asked him. But it didn't matter, because it was all there as he looked at her, in the absolute awe at play behind his eyes. Diana slipped into her place at Anne's side and smiled as she watched him, smiled at the dancing light on his face as Matthew kissed Anne Shirley the smallest of goodbyes, and placed her hand into Gilbert's.

There were no words exchanged between them, these two men with the quiet, ponderous hearts. None were needed, for Matthew and Gilbert knew that in each other they were understood. They shared something in common, a conviction that of all the people they had ever chanced to meet they liked Anne the best. It was a conviction that showed whenever they happened to glance Anne's way, and it showed whenever Matthew and Gilbert spoke. This is who I am connected to because we are so alike. It bound them to one another irrevocably, this love of Anne: it made them family.

And so Anne's pale hand slipped from Matthew's to Gilbert's, and Diana directed Dellie gently into her place on Anne's left. And the light that followed Anne wherever she went fell once more upon Gilbert Blythe's face.

The glow was infectious; it warmed Diana even stood at a distance, even stood to the side. It was the honour of her life just to bear witness, just to feel that she was part of it all as she took Anne's flowers from her and felt her heart expand within her until she could have embraced the whole world in it, this love that Anne had given her, this love that Anne had shared, because that was _who she was._

Among the cheers that exploded at the moment Anne looked up bright eyed and beaming into Gilbert's crooked smile, and tilted her face upwards into his kiss, Diana's were the loudest. And she was among the first to congratulate them, as they made their way up the soft aisle of grass and buttercups, Anne's very own place of worship, the scandal of all Avonlea.

And as she watched Anne and Gil run downhill at a pace not to be matched or exceeded, to the delight of a shouting crowd, she allowed herself to acknowledge what Anne might once have termed a delicious thrill; the hot-cold consciousness of an inscrutable stare boring into her back.

No one asked Diana to describe Anne that day. But if they had, Diana would have said that Anne was graced with light. Anne _was l_ ight. Her best friend was a woman who worshipped among the buttercups, who believed that to say your prayers is unnecessary, but to feel them is as natural and as indispensable to existence as breathing. Such light had allowed Diana to learn things she could never otherwise have known. Anne had taught her to fly.

Deceit couldn't exist in such conditions. There was no hiding when your best friend was Anne Shirley-Cuthbert, even and especially from oneself. So Diana turned on her heel, and looked across the neat rows of bedecked lawn chairs, to see Jerry Baynard looking her full in the face.

#

'So you're a teacher?'

Diana struggled in spite of herself to restrain the delight, and the surprise, that rose up within her. There was something so achingly familiar about the man in front of her, and yet he was a stranger. A stranger with a soft shadow of scruff, and a better fitting best suit than the Jerry of memory had ever worn. But he was Jerry nonetheless, looking at her like he was thinking t'es trop belle all over again.

T'es trop belle was something Diana had heard since Jerry, something. T'es trop belle was something Diana - such as she was - was sure of hearing wherever she went. She had kissed some of them, liked some of them, even loved some of them. But she never made the mistakes with anyone that she had made with Jerry, and there was a small bruised corner of her that knew she had never felt for anyone as she had for him, either.

And so it was impulse to ask whether he wouldn't dance with her, after the first song had been played, and they had spoken a little. It was impulse, a longing to touch him once again, but it was also a stretching out of the moment, a playing for time in an encounter where in spite of everything she still had no idea what to say.

Jerry's 'yes' was breathless, enthusiastic, just like the 'yes' Diana remembered, all that wonder and awe and excitement. But there was a little something extra that hadn't been there, something guarded, something a lot like the premonition of regret. Diana felt her heart rise up within her throat, wondered whether she should retract her offer, wondered whether she should suddenly see an old acquaintance she simply had to talk something urgent through with then and there, or even just forget it all and fly out the door. But Jerry was smiling at her like she meant something to him, like however much she hurt him it would be worth the pain. She remembered the confusion on his face when her feelings had turned within her, turned on her, so quickly as to be barely comprehensible even to herself. This was something that was due to him, some sort of acknowledgment of how she had felt about him, even if it did not erase all the hurt that had arose therefrom.

It was something she wanted to give to him, this boy who had meant so much to her. She wanted to be able to find the right words.

So she took his hand, stepped into a place opposite to him in the circle, and allowed herself to be swept in beside him, to be twirled away from him, to dissolve into a series of steps. Seven years and little had altered in the way her hand felt in Jerry's, in the soft edges of Jerry's eyes or the way he seemed to laugh even when his face was completely serious. Each time she felt Jerry's hand joined with hers the flush of warmth within her grew larger, each time she was swept away from him was harder to bear. The distance of the length of the dance set, so much less than it had been in so many years, suddenly felt unbearable. She wanted to reach up, to kiss him here in front of all these people, to crush him against her and tell him she was sorry and beg him never to let her leave him ever again. But she couldn't help but feel that it was an unkindness. Perhaps she would just be doing the same thing to him all over again.

So they touched and parted, touched and parted. And then the set was over.

Jerry stepped over to her, and she felt that something unspeakable was about to be spoken, something that would make suddenly clear the words she needed to say to him, everything that would make things clear between them. Jerry reached out, and grasped her hand firmly between both of his.

'Di, won't you play a song for us?'

And just like that, the moment was broken. When Diana looked up, she found Jerry shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot staring anywhere but at her. The noise of the room rose up around her then, forced itself upon her notice, made her feel that anywhere in the world would be preferable to being right here.

If Anne noticed who Diana was dancing with, if she registered that anything at all unusual was afoot, then her face gave no indication. She was wrapped up in her own happiness, radiant. Completely absorbed in her hand in Gilbert's, and her conviction that this was the moment if ever there was one, where she most needed Diana to be seated at the piano and play.

Gilbert had noticed, Diana realised with a shudder, and his smile was gentle and sympathetic and warm. She wasn't sure what he thought was happening, there was no time to explain, and no words even if there had been. So she smiled like there was nothing in the world she would rather be doing even as her heart shattered within her, feeling this moment of communication so close to perfect slip from between her grip. She untangled herself from Jerry's suddenly limp fingers, and made her way across the room, where the piano sat newly vacant. A couple of her mother's friends turned at her approach, expectant, and out of the corner of her eye Diana saw Ruby seize Moody up from where he was sat and pull him into the centre of the room. Inspite of herself, she smiled.

Diana took her seat at the piano, and grappled desperately with a choice that suddenly felt momentous, every piece of music in her repertoire marking a different way this moment could turn for her, each choice marking a different way Anne and Gil's memory of this dance might go. 

Overwhelmed, she looked up to find Jerry looking at her, mischief in the smile pulling at the edges of that new, mature face. The choice burst upon her like the last of the Autumn sunlight, a boy standing with his family across the field from her at the fete, miming a sneeze. And she knew how she would have finished that dance between them, the thing that hung in the air, interrupted.

I was afraid then, she would tell him, and it made me cruel. I'm not afraid anymore.

She placed her hands on the keys, thought of her parents, of Anne, of Jerry, and played.

**Author's Note:**

> So this started as distraction from my diss (on Anne - so this is technically working, yes?) and now we're here and it's a thing. Writing this has brought me so much joy - hope you enjoy it too in spite of the many mistakes I am far too lazy to edit out!
> 
> Dedicated to the love of my life, goldinavonlea, without whom this would be much less of a thing. If you fancy, go and have a lil read of her beautiful Anne fic, it is cosier than Christmas.


End file.
